Performance History
The world premiere of the fully staged opera occurred on June 20, 2008 in Northampton, Massachusetts at the Academy of Music Theater, the city's 800-seat 1892 opera house, one of the oldest municipally owned theaters in the nation and not unlike Ford's Theatre. The performance featured the Boston Modern Orchestra Project conducted by Gil Rose. Principal performers included Janna Baty as Laura Keene, Drew Poling as Ned Emerson, Alan Schneider as Harry Hawk, Aaron Engebreth as Jack Matthews, and Tom O'Toole as John Wilkes Booth. Stage direction was by Carole Charnow, general director of Opera Boston.
The opera had been previously performed in a concert version on March 31, 2007 at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, with the same principals as above along with the Amherst College Concert Choir.
Read more about this topic: Our American Cousin (opera)
Famous quotes containing the words performance and/or history:
“True balance requires assigning realistic performance expectations to each of our roles. True balance requires us to acknowledge that our performance in some areas is more important than in others. True balance demands that we determine what accomplishments give us honest satisfaction as well as what failures cause us intolerable grief.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)